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Traveling with teenagers in Central Europe: Vienna and Croatia

We have 16-17 days, tops, and are trying to put together an itinerary that includes Vienna, Prague and/or Budapest, and a town or maybe two on the Dalmatian Coast. Is this too ambitious? Would Venice be an easier city to work in than Budapest? We are also interested in a day trip to Mostar.

Prague -> Vienna -> Venice -> Split -> Dubrovnik seems to make the most sense. Venice. It's not that much harder to include Budapest once you are in Vienna, but time gets to be an issue if you want to do both so one or the other seems reasonable.

An open jaw that include Dubrovnik might by pricey - it is a tough place to get to, cheaply, from N. America so if that is where you are you should look into possibly flying to DBV after Vienna and then working your way back up through Mostar to Split and then over to Venice.

Others may disagree, but IMHO, yes - too ambitious! You would end up spending lots of time in transit, cutting short your time to actually visit each of these worthy destinations.

When you think about transportation times, remember that you'll also need to get to and from your accommodations at each end, get oriented to a new city (plan on getting lost at least once!), exchange currency, ... And traveling with others almost always means some loss of time to "herding."

But it does depend on a lot of things, including your interests.

The good news is that you'll see some wonderful places even if you trim your plans to Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and a few day-trips.

I agree with kja, the proposed itinerary is ambitious. We currently live in Vienna and have taken day and overnight trips to Budapest and Prague with our children; transportation times are always longer than expected, even if you drive, and the regrouping or "herding" does cut into sightseeing time.

I would suggest perhaps flying into Prague, basing there for a few days before moving on to Vienna and basing there (to include Budapest), and finally going to Venice and flying home from there. Alternatively, fly in and out of Venice and travel to Croatia in between.